Social media is one of the biggest marketing platforms out there. Here’s what makes it stand out amongst the others, and what gives it the special qualities that other platforms don’t possess.

The concept of marketing through social media is fairly new when compared to other traditional forms of marketing. But, in today’s world, it might be the most important one out of them all. There are a number of reasons why social media marketing is so popular and why companies are spending huge amounts of time and resources on marketing this way. Let us look at some of the reasons why businesses should explore this avenue of marketing and how they can best make use of these platforms.

Your consumers are using social media.

Companies should aim to have a presence on all platforms where they can reach potential customers. Instead of the customers looking for you, you should be approaching customers. That is the number one rule if a company wishes to grow and expand.

There are approximately 3.4 billion people around the world who are active social media users. That’s about 42% of the entire Earth’s population. Just to put this into perspective, TV has an audience of 1.63 billion, with projections of this number reaching 1.74 billion by 2023.

With so many active users of social media around the world, regardless of what type of company you are and what your target audience is, you will find that a lot of your customers will be using social media actively.

You can capitalize on this huge number of people by marketing your product and hence increasing brand awareness.

People are receptive to social media marketing.

Even though social media was initially invented to allow users to connect with loved ones and share life events or opinions with other people, throughout the previous couple of years, it has evolved into something very different.

Brands like Nike, Adidas, McDonalds, KFC, have huge followings on social platforms. Companies have realized the true potential of marketing through social media sites and have built up large audiences that follow their every move. In fact, online adults aged 18-34 are most likely to follow a brand via social networking (95%).

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A great example of people being receptive to social media marketing was the recent Popeyes chicken sandwich fiasco. Due to some smart social media marketing techniques, Popeyes was able to build up such a hype around its new fried chicken sandwich that it sold out two weeks after it first went on sale.  Forbes reported it as a $65 million marketing win for Popeyes.  This story just goes to show what power social media holds in the current marketing world.

In 2015 Facebook influenced 52 percent of consumers’  online and offline purchases, up from 36 percent in 2014.

It needs a low budget.

One of the biggest advantages of social media marketing over other forms of marketing is the cost involved in engaging in these activities.

Television commercials typically need a huge budget for production and then distribution. Newspaper ads can also cost a lot depending on which page you want them printed. In comparison, social media marketing is very lucrative when we assess the costs involved and the reach possible with each post.

Generally, posts on social media sites are free. Anyone can post whatever they want, whenever they want, and it would cost them nothing. Companies, however, typically tend to spend some money to initially build up their fan base by having posts that show up as ads. But when we compare how much companies actually pay and the audience they are able to reach in this way to how much they might pay for a TV commercial and the reach of that commercial, we realize that the process of social media marketing is actually very cheap and effective.

The ability to see how well ads are doing.

A feature that is not offered in most other marketing platforms is checking how good your ads are doing online. Social media sites offer a number of tools that allow companies to see which ads are doing good and which aren’t. You can check which ads are bringing in the most engagements and then focus on those instead of others that might not be doing so well.

These tools help companies to evaluate how their efforts are going and can provide valuable insights into how brands can revamp their marketing techniques to bring in more engagements.

Help build a stronger connection with customers.

A great problem that brands have to tackle when engaging in marketing is how they can make their ads relatable to the audience. The digital world has made us desensitized to seeing advertisements. A lot of us switch off emotionally when we encounter an ad. For many of us, an ad is simply a piece of content that we are forced to see in order to continue watching what we really want. Companies that are able to connect with people through their ads and bridge this emotional gap are the ones who are most successful in their marketing efforts.

Fortunately, social media is a place where brands can show a different side to customers, a side they might not have seen before. Building loyal fan-bases is something that all companies want, and social media is a great platform to achieve that.

71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand that is likely to recommend it to others.

Brands can use social media as a platform to engage directly with their consumers and be real with them, an attitude that can attract customers and improve brand image.